To Church or Not To Church: Taste the Soup

By Carolyn Arends, on February 12, 2014, 9:48 am.

Donald Miller’s candid confession last week that he doesn’t often attend church has re-energized an ongoing conversation about. among other things, whether the institutional church is essential for Christ-followers, and whether or not (and why) millennials are leaving the church. Yesterday on a whim I tweeted a link to a column I had previously written regarding my own lover’s quarrel with the church, and I’ve been somewhat astonished at the new conversation it has generated. So it only seems right to repost it here.

What are your thoughts? Do you “go” to church? Do you think you should? Why or why not?

Sometimes you have to do what’s being asked of you before you understand why it’s required. You have to be willing to taste the soup in order to discover the spoon is missing. In religious parlance: “Understanding follows obedience.” It’s an axiom every bit as true as it is vexing. Psalm 111 observes that “all who follow [God’s] precepts have good understanding”—not the other way around.

Lately, for me, the command to “taste the soup” has been about attending church. Trouble is, I just haven’t felt like going.

People who complain that church is boring have no idea. Church is scary.

I’ve been sliding into pews (or modern equivalents) from infancy; my vocation has taken me to hundreds of churches around the world. I’ve met some of my dearest friends and endured some of my darkest betrayals in youth rooms, foyers, and sanctuaries. I’ve cried, sung, prayed, committed, disconnected, recommitted, scribbled sermon notes, doodled, been wounded, been healed, encountered the Mystery, and dozed off—sometimes all in the same service.

There are seasons when Sunday can’t come soon enough. The gifts church has given me are too numerous to list.

But there are also stretches of disillusionment. Times when the songs that once ushered me into a profound awareness of God’s presence seem suddenly schlocky and manipulative. Mornings when I can’t find anyone I know during the “greeting” time, and a previously cozy ritual morphs into a caricature of superficial community. Those are the Sundays I struggle with the sermon and feel my theological earnestness hardening into elitism, discernment distorting into self-righteousness.

Like anyone who has logged serious pew time, I’ve got reasons to be jaded. I’ve seen churches split over trivia while they trivialize glaring immorality amongst their leaders. I’ve encountered gossip posing as prayer, and bullying masquerading as “spiritual guidance.” I’ve watched the realignment and reduction of the gospel into a business plan for membership growth or personal improvement.

Most damaging of all, I’ve looked into my own heart and known that if my pew-mates are anything like me, church is composed of frail humans, each of us an unreliable, potentially dangerous mess of conflicting motives and wavering intentions.

People who complain that church is boring have no idea. Church is scary.

So I sell myself the half-truth that church is something we are rather than something we do. I stay home with my theology textbooks and Bible and enjoy a dissension-free congregation of one. I console myself with an online network of enlightened individuals who share both my convictions and my cynicisms. We satirize the excesses of organized religion, feeling cleverer than we ought about shooting the fish in our own barrels. We create a virtual but significant community. And for a while, it’s enough.

There’s just one problem. Beneath my rhetoric of antilegalism, enlightenment, and self-protection there remains a still, small—but increasingly insistent—voice. And it’s telling me to taste the soup.

The biblical witness indicates that when God gets hold of people, they almost always work out the implications in groups. This has never been an easy process. The Israelites praise, squabble, fail, and repent together in a seemingly endless cycle. The Christians in the apostle Paul’s churches alternately thrill and break their pastor’s heart over and over again. But they keep at it, and with every try Paul grows more passionate about the ragtag crew of notoriously fallible humans who so thoroughly are the church that they can’t help but dochurch together. Striving to convey the profound connection between Jesus and the people who gather in his name, Paul employs only the most intimate metaphors—we are Christ’s bride, or his very body.

The triune God has always been into community. And community, I am forced to admit, ultimately requires meeting together with flesh and blood folks I cannot “block” or “unfriend” should they become annoying. It means getting close enough to hug and to arm wrestle, to build (and sometimes hold) each other up, even as we risk letting each other down.

It is important to remember that “tasting the soup” is not the same as “drinking the Kool-Aid.” We are not required to unthinkingly remain in toxic or abusive environments, or even to follow a particular structure or meet on a certain day. Obedience in this area is simply intentional proximity with a group of people who love Jesus and each other. It is coming together to his table, if only because that is what he asks us to do. And it is trusting that he’ll show us not only the spoons we’re missing, but also the feast he has in store.

6 comments to To Church or Not To Church: Taste the Soup

We had this discussion in my Bible study. The issue about not going to church is it clearly goes against the scripture that talk about not giving up the habit of meeting together (Hebrews 10:25). Church does not necessarily have to be a huge church. But it is definitely made up of a body of a Christ followers who according to Acts 2:46 went to the temple together and broke bread in their homes. Isolating one self from others in the body of Christ is exactly what Satan wants. We are a body, and one cannot function as a part of the body on one’s own. I could say so much more, but I will limit my comments to this.

Once again, God’s direction is very timely! This is the reminder I needed at a time when I am feeling all of the emotions mentioned, and struggling with knowing what His will and direction is, and where it will lead our family.

Thanks for the re-post Carolyn – an excellent overview. It seems our limited options are rather straightforward: 1. Engage and work to improve the body we attend, 2. Prayerfully find something closer to our convictions, or 3. Humbly and bravely start something new. Unfortunately, all three involve life in community – messy and painful though it can be.

In the same vein, I found the book “Why Do Men Hate Going To Church?” by David Murrow an insightful look at the state of the western church today.

God still calls us to not forsake gathering together. But… for many of us we are sometimes not sure why we gather. We constantly have to remember the Lord’s invitation..” come all who are weary, and I will give you rest”. There was a time when I was looking to the body of Christ for my happiness, and I was let down. When Jesus called his disciples many of them felt like they belonged, before they eventually believed. We as a church should try to get back to that sense of belonging to something that we cannot do alone.

Jesus loves his Bride. I love Jesus. Therefore, I will strive to love his Bride as well, no matter how (fill in the negative attribute of your choice) the Bride may be. And since I’m not Jesus, I guess that makes me (part of)the Bride. When I cast stones at the Church, am I not casting stones at myself as well? Jesus knows his Bride’s imperfections much better than we do….and yet he loves his Bride! I love Jesus. Therefore, I will strive to love his Bride (including me in it) as well…

Welcome. Of all the blogs in all the towns in all the cyber-world, you walked into mine...and I couldn't be happier. If we haven't met, my name is Carolyn. I am a singer/songwriter, author, speaker, college instructor, recent grad school graduate, wife, mother and slightly distracted driver. (I'm working on the driver part. Road safety is important.) I am also the Director of Education for Renovaré, a wide-reaching organization that encourages and nurtures spiritual renewal. I live in Surrey, BC with my husband Mark and our two kids, Ben and Beth.

I love ideas and language (and chocolate). I'm convinced that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, and I'm rather preoccupied with figuring out all the things that might mean. This is where I blog, and where, I hope, we get to know each other. Thanks for being here. [ MORE ]

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